


good servants, bad lords

by smallrosebush



Series: permanent, intolerable uncertainty [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Healing, Other, Platonic Relationships, a family can be eight traumatized young adults and their shapeshifting cat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-05 07:55:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16806550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallrosebush/pseuds/smallrosebush
Summary: Molly falls in battle for the first time since Glory Run. His friends are there to pick up the pieces.





	good servants, bad lords

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @vvildemount.

It's a flimsy little will-o'-the-wisp that gets Molly, of all things. A bolt of lightning glances against his chest and he reels backwards before dropping. Yasha dodges out of melee with the Entombed and rushes to his side. She cradles his bleeding head in her trembling hands and prays desperately. As she pours divine strength into her best friend's body, she's never been more thankful for her heritage.

She feels Molly's heartbeat stabilize and match her own. When he opens his eyes and tries to sit up, Yasha gently guides him back down, whispering soothing nonsense in Celestial all the while. She glances behind her and realizes the battle has ended in her absence. Beside the fallen undead, Nott is wiping her crossbow bolts clean on a patch of moss while Caduceus heals an unconscious Caleb. Jester, Fjord, and Beau are hovering near Yasha and watching, but clearly unwilling to disturb the moment.

Yasha tries to form words, but none come out. She clears her throat and tries again. "He's fine," she says, and allows herself to weep.

Distantly, she feels Molly move beside her, and then his arms are around her, and he's saying, "Hey, Yash, it's alright. I'm back."

It'd been a month since the ritual and longer since Molly had fought, and he needed to feel the flex in his shoulders as he wielded his scimitars, feel the rumble in his chest as the language of demons spilled out of him. And so he convinced his overprotective, cautious, wonderful friends to let him come along.

(To let him come along, as if he doesn't belong in the battlefield just as much as they do. He's terrified he doesn't.)

He's wishing, now, staring at the ceiling of the covered wagon as it weaves along some old road, that he had stayed home, feeling useless, but feeling his chest rise and his heart beat. Molly knows he'll wake up tonight coughing non-existent mud out of his lungs.

Jester, apparently having switched off on the watch, is settling down beside him on the floor. Molly's noticed her change during his absence, how she's more withdrawn, now, less carefree. The two tieflings sit in silence until Jester, without warning, throws her arms around Molly, knocking him a bit off balance. She doesn't yell, as she would have before, but sobs openly into the shoulder of his coat. Molly's crying too, now, and they're both making a mess and making a scene and neither of them care.

She composes herself, eventually, enough to say, "Molly, I thought you died. I thought you were _gone_."

"Gods, Jes, you just left. Don't make me worry like that again."

"I won't if you won't. Pinky swear?"

They swear, and Molly leans into Jester as she dozes off, soothed somewhat by the rocking of the cart. He laces their fingers together, closes his eyes, and forces his breathing to match hers.

Molly's lifting a mug to his mouth back at the inn when he notices Beau staring critically at his hand from across the table. He swallows and says, "Like what you see?"

"Fuck you," she says without heat. Then: "D'you want me to paint your nails?"

"I- what?"

"You always used to paint them and they've looked like shit for the past month."

Molly composes himself and laughs. "Have you ever painted nails before?"

Beau's eyes glint as she says, "You don't think I can do it? Man, I run up walls, like, every day. You don't think I can paint your fucking nails?"

She can't, as it turns out later, when half the deep blue varnish has spilled and vanished into the porous wood table. Molly examines the smudge across his index finger and, considering carefully, wipes it in a stripe across Beau's nose. She realizes too late what's happening and wipes at it fruitlessly before flipping him off. Molly laughs, delighted.

Hearing movement over Frumpkin's purring, Molly looks up from where he's petting the temporary cat. Caduceus, having set a pot of tea on the table, pours a cup and hands it to Molly. "Here," he says, sitting. "I think this might help."

Molly mutters thanks before sipping the tea. It's sweet and spicy and almost overpowering. A realization hits him. "Hey, Cad?"

Caduceus looks up from his own cup. "Hm?"

"Is this tea made from my old body?"

"Well, yes. I thought it might help. Closure and all that."

Come to think of it, it does help something, though it might just be that the tea's delicious. "You are an absolute genius." Molly raises his cup, adds "Thank you for this," and drains it. As he holds the cup out for more, he catches Caduceus' slight smile.

"You'll find what you need soon," Caduceus says, and leaves it at that.

Molly's watching Caleb read from where he's curled up on his chest, a horn slightly obscuring the bottom of a page. They've taken to sharing a bed most nights, though Molly still tells himself it's only because they both have nightmares and that this seems to help. He's firmly refusing to examine _why_.

Molly asks suddenly, before he can think better of it, "Why are you still here?" Seeing Caleb's look of confusion, he hastens to add, "You're quite pretty, you know. And you're ridiculously intelligent, funny, caring- you could have just about anyone. Why me?"

Caleb's expression closes off a bit and Molly braces himself for whatever's coming next. But he says, "Mollymauk, I chose you because you are beautiful, and generous, and kind when no one is looking. It would be hypocritical of me if your past stopped me from- from caring about you."

Molly gives a weak grin as Caleb gives their interlaced fingers a squeeze. "Second starts?"

"Second starts," Caleb confirms, and returns a soft smile.

**Author's Note:**

> i didn't include fjord and nott bc i don't feel confident writing their characters + dynamic yet press f. also, fair warning: if i continue this series, my updates will likely be sporadic. i should probably catch up on my rewatch before writing much more, anyway.  
> oh, and merry xmas to those who celebrate it, and happy holidays and a weary look of solidarity to those who don't.


End file.
